I don’t have to think about how I look (nobody is looking) or my status in professional groups (nobody cares if I’m there) or how to behave (nobody is paying any attention). I’m free!

The list of possibilities for my future used to be long and exciting. Now, I feel like a human artichoke with parts of me being pulled off by a maniacal bacchanalian reveler.

Talking about physical problems is bad for your social life. That’s what 93-year-old Don Kaplan thinks, anyway. During the 18 years he has lived at a senior co-housing complex in Walnut Creek, California, he’s noted the difference between residents who seem “old” and residents who have healthy and happy social lives.

“Travel—whether for work or a new place to live or for a diversion—is the great educator about people and how they live, and I have used my privilege of having lived and traveled widely in the United States as creative fuel, again and again.”

In Western Montana, where I live, water seems plentiful. It gathers in the mountains as snow. It pools underground. Turn a faucet handle and clean water gushes or dribbles at your command. But is it plentiful? What do we really know about the water we use and see?

One man, whom I hadn’t seen since the year 2000, prefaced his inquiry by asking me if I’d written the book myself or had hired a ghost writer. Once I got over feeling slightly insulted, I relaxed and enjoyed our chat. He, too, has an idea for a book, of course.

In a Bible story, Jesus fed five thousand people with one loaf of bread and two fishes. But that was a miracle done by the Son of God. A kid like me didn’t have the power to come up with enough chocolate for a crowd.

One day in the late 1990s, a grant writer I knew, and sometimes worked with, announced that he and his wife were moving back to Kentucky, where they were from. “We’ve been living out here on the frontier for five years now,” he said, “and I’m tired of struggling to earn a living.”

While I was busy editing a podcast on my laptop at the kitchen counter, Patrick was busy with his own freelance work: pulling the stuffing out of a fuzzy pink and yellow ball—a cuddle toy his person meant as a gift for her friend’s baby. I must have ignored him for too long while I worked, and now cleaning up this mess is my penance.

Local critter sitters, including Dana, were quickly overwhelmed with requests for dog walking and home-stay services. Affluent pet owners tried Rover.com and college students. Now they wanted someone experienced, responsible, and mature. I had experience. I was responsible and well-seasoned. Mature by every definition of the word.

We’re just about to pass the last of the bushes and turn onto the sidewalk when a sweet-faced Golden Retriever suddenly appears, walking next to a tall man in a black jacket. Patrick goes from zero to ferocious in a split second. With amazing speed and force, he emits a menacing growl and leaps toward the other dog.

When faced with a conundrum, I often stare at it—the way Patrick is doing—while I wait for an insight. That feels like the best option now. So, we both stare at the bowl, him sitting, me standing. Seconds and minutes pass.

In the early 1960s, I used to sing a song about household chores. Not because I liked household chores—I was a kid, after all—but because it was a catchy tune. Maybe I heard it on the TV show Captain Kangaroo? Decades later, the Internet informed me that the concept and tune may be hundreds of years old, originating as a German or Dutch folk song. Whatever. In the song, each day of the week was assigned to a specific task.